


Natural

by arigato



Series: Navigate the Universe [3]
Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, attempted very real take on first time parenting, flangst, gender roles? I don’t know her, lil-grumpy-bean-Danvers, maria is the friend we all need, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 00:52:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18377582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arigato/pseuds/arigato
Summary: She turned to him one night after sleep proved far too elusive and whispered, "Y’know when people on those shows talked about being abducted and inseminated by aliens, this isn’t excatly how I imagined it.""That’s not what-" His initial affront turning to a resigned sigh as he rolled over onto his back. "Must you be so crass?""I mean, technically I’m right." She smiled, before continuing to disturb him. "But honestly, I kinda thought there’d be more eggs and tentacles involved.""Carol."--That in which Carol finds she has more confidence in her ability to save the universe than her parenting skills.





	Natural

**Author's Note:**

> As advertised this contains themes of parenthood and mentions of pregnancy, please read responsibly. Also, first person to guess where the name Una comes from wins.

Mistakes caused accidents, at least so far as Carol had experienced.  

She faintly remembered walking up on her first accident, the smell of burnt jet fuel assaulting her nostrils as her and her wingmates searched beyond hope for survivors. There was little left of the beloved crew than a burnt crater in the dry lakaebed. _“They made a mistake._ ” Was the general consensus and the buzz around base and Poncho’s days later. Rather than deal with the general uncertainty of their jobs and the overall unspoken risk, easy blame was quickly assigned, before everyone moved on. It was just another part of the culture, accidents happened because someone, somewhere had made a mistake.

But this was one accident that she just couldn’t attribute to a mistake, Carol couldn’t clearly assign blame- no matter what she may have yelled with her hands fisted in her partner’s shirt when the pains finally became unbearable. It was no one’s fault, it just somehow happened. Ultimately Carol was glad it did, even if it left her doubting herself at every turn.

Truth be told, Carol had wondered long before Una Amelia Danvers came wailing into their lives whether she’d be able to do this, if she was capable of being responsible for another being in such a way. Yon-Rogg seemed to share none of her insecurity, taking the whole event in stride, completely prepared to rearrange himself without so much as a second thought. _‘I’m ready even when I’m not.”_ She recalled him telling her once.

 Although Yon-Rogg rarely talked about it unless Carol asked, bits and pieces of the parental culture on Hala slipped through in unexpected ways. Every now and then she’d catch him doing something extremely outlandish in preparation, such as stitching pouches into a few of his outer garments, because apparently Kree carried their offspring nearly everywhere but the battlefield. This early integration into daily life was what he smugly attributed that to their quicker rates of self sufficiency when compared to humans.

One morning when he felt the little life within her stirring and thumping against his hand he’d smiled and proudly remarked “Feels like this one is already a warrior.” Which would be a strange expectation of an unborn child, were her father not a Kree. True to form, he never fawned over Carol, nor questioned her judgment on continuing to work missions for as long as she was able, and knowing her own limits. Finally, Carol herself decided to take a break in the homestretch, feeling burnt out in more ways than one about the constant state of the universe. Captain Marvel could take maternity leave- that was a thing, right?

Maria assured her from galaxies away “Totally.”

 

“You’re saying only Terran women get the postpartum hormones?” Yon-Rogg had asked her one evening while Carol balanced a container of umag-fruit sherbet on the stubbornly convenient shelf that was her belly at 39 weeks.

“Yeah, isn’t that normal?” She mumbled between spoonfuls.

“No. _Both_ Kree parents get them the moment they make contact with the infant, it’s called imprinting.”  He said matter-of-factly, not looking up from his careful stitching. 

“Both? Why do both parents need them? I mean, you’re not the one who has to push the kid out.” She gestured roughly to her lower parts.

“Our people are constantly at war. Each parent must be prepared to completely take over all duties should their partner fall in battle.”

“Not really planning on ever needing that, but- _Ow_.”

Yon-Rogg looked up at her sharply, his piercing gaze immediately assessing her. Carol just smiled at his readiness, empathizing with a sigh.  “Nah, not yet. She’s just kicked me in the ribs is all.”

 

Maria warned her that the first 3 weeks were always the hardest. Carol remembered the crying and the tired eyes but most of all she remembered the nameless uncertainty that threatened to swallow Maria whole when Monica came. When Una finally made her grand entrance and it was all said and done, Carol was left sweaty, exhausted, dazed and more than a little sore. Not unlike a good fight, which she admittedly hadn’t had in quite a while. Winning came easy these days, so the exhaustion was unfamiliar. Everything was new- and weird. Very weird.

The slightly purple flush of the infant had initially unsettled her, Carol somehow expected beyond all logic for Una to be pinkish at birth. But with blue blood to match that of her parents it was only natural; so Yon Rogg assured her, with more emotionality in his voice than she’d ever heard.

 _Only natural_ , and yet Carol found that there was something disturbingly unnatural about the whole situation. After her initial cries Una just mewled softly as Carol handed her over to Yon-Rogg to hold for the very first time. He stared down in unabashed wonder at the infant’s tiny face while Una suddenly went still, staring back at her father with slightly unfocused eyes. It was as if there was some sightless connection being forged, some strange bond between parent and child materializing before her very eyes. _Imprinting._

 

 

At just over one exhausting week in, her partner’s comment about one parent needing to prepare to take over duties completely hadn’t fully registered. Yon-Rogg had said ‘completely’, and Carol hadn’t realized that was _exactly_ what he meant, until one night in particular.

Upon waking with a damp shirt and realizing she’d somehow slept through a night feeding, Carol noticed the dwelling was strangely quiet. Far more quiet than it should be with a hungry newborn, and Yon-Rogg’s absence from their bed only compounded her apprehension.  Carol shuffled out of the empty bed and ambled into the next room, finding Yon-Rogg standing beside the crib. The front of his robe was pushed to the side, revealing their white-jumpsuit-clad infant holding a tiny handful of her father’s chest hair as she went to town.

Una was nursing. He was _feeding_ her. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.

 Though Carol knew this was normal for him, somehow it still shook her to the core. She distantly recalled seeing Kree of both genders do it before; on trains, in parks, in restaurants, but she hadn’t had the point of earthy reference at the time to know just how different it was compared to the physiology she was used to growing up. She’d certainly never pictured Yon-Rogg doing it someday, even though she knew all Kree men were capable of it. 

“I know we haven’t worked out a schedule yet, but she was hungry and I didn’t want to wake you.” He stroked Una’s cheek, before meeting his partner’s eyes- only to find them slightly bugged.

“ _Carol_.” He admonished softly, careful not to jostle the increasingly drowsy babe in his arms. “I’m certain you’ve seen my chest plenty of times, why are you looking at me like that?”

 “I-I just-” She floundered, trying to contain her bewilderment and embarrassing fascination at what was occurring. “Thank you, uhm- for feeding her.”

 

 

A few more weeks and her daughter’s eyes were still a beautiful yet unnervingly ethereal shade of soft lilac- as they had been since birth. Which was also ‘natural’, apparently all Kree were born like that, and they’d settle on a final pigment after 6 months or so. However, her hair was a familiar sandy color, now mussed in a way that matched her father’s bristly short locks as Una wriggled and kicked in her crib.

Yon-Rogg had been encouraging her to move as much as possible, probably the result of the  Kree values deeply engrained in his psyche to make a little fighter out of her. Una responded by burbling at him and reaching out towards the stuffed alligator in Carol’s hands.

“Who’s this, huh? Do you see the gator?” Carol used the voice she’d perfected long ago with Monica, who’d been the one to gift her favorite baby toy when Carol returned to earth after Maria’s insistence on having a _proper_ baby shower. Carol waved the gator close to her daughter’s face, causing the infant to suddenly curl in on herself while screeching loudly. Strangely, Una didn’t seem to be truly crying, just making alarmingly loud noises.

“Oh _shit_ , I’m sorry!” Carol immediately drew her hand back.  “I didn’t mean to scare you, bean. What's a matter, what’s wrong?”

 “Nothing’s wrong with her. That’s her defensive reflex.” Yon-Rogg began rubbing soothing circles across Una’s tummy, his large hands spanning nearly her entire torso. The screeching stopped almost instantly as she met his eyes.

 “And a very healthy reflex, at that.” He praised her efforts, smiling down at their tiny girl as Una resumed thrashing about and reached her hands up in her father’s direction. 

“Guess she thought Monica’s alligator was gonna eat her.” Carol murmured as she appraised the toy in her hands before returning it to the shelf.

Watching Yon-Rogg interact with Una she couldn’t help but wonder how the ex- commander of the highest elite squad of Kree warriors learned how to do all of... _this_ , but she already knew the answer- as hard as it was to swallow. A lot of it was simply natural for him through some sort of Kree-connection thing, something she didn’t have. He was simply more perceptive to Una’s needs than her.

When the baby wrapped a hand around his finger he finally broke Carol’s reverent observation. “You know, I still can’t believe you went all the way back to earth just for those toys and some sort of communal shower gathering. Are they really that much better down there?”

He was so obtuse sometimes she swore it was deliberate. “It’s not that kind of- you know what, _yeah_. Earth has fabulous magical showers, the likes of which you can’t even imagine.” She grinned while elbowing him lightly.

 

  

Thankfully, Carol found that she was not the only one left perplexed at the unfamiliar intricacies of their inter-species daughter. There’d been a few incidents during the first couple weeks where Yon-Rogg got his turn being the proverbial fish out of water.

“Oh _Collective._ ” At the mild Kree expletive, Carol cracked an eye open to find Yon-Rogg rocking Una gently over his shoulder. “She’s done it again. If she keeps vomiting after feedings, we’ll have to bring her to the medical center.”

At this Carol shifted into full wakefulness from her place on the couch where she’d dozed off while tinkering with a communicator and assessed the situation.

“That? That’s just spit up.” She gestured to the milky stains on his shirt by way of explanation.

“Spit-what?” Yon-Rogg just stared at her in further expectation while continuing to massage Una’s back. The newborn burped once before contentedly gurgling against her father’s shoulder. 

“Uhh, it’s something to do with how her whole digestive system isn’t fully formed yet, so yeah _that_ happens. You’re probably gonna want to use one of these bad boys.” She moves to hand him a cloth, the cute one Maria gave her with the little bi-planes on it. Carol admittedly had a _lot_ more baby gear and house plants than she’d ever planned on owning in her entire life at this point.

“Wait, do Kree babies not do that?”

“Our infants are usually born more fully developed.” He said with a hint of arrogance, intending yet another jab at inferior Terran physiology, but for a man with baby spit-up down his back perhaps he shouldn’t throw stones.

 

Mere days after the spit up incident, Carol was forced to respond to Yon-Rogg’s concerns for Una’s wellbeing yet again.

“Carol!”

She winced, knowing Yon-Rogg yelling for her with that much panic in his voice could _not_ be good. “Something’s wrong with Una, she’s stopped breathing properly!” 

“ _What_?” That was enough to bring her dashing from where she was putting shoes on in preparation for her morning run. “What’s happening?” 

“I was testing her facial recognition reflexes,” Carol would’ve rolled her eyes at the unnecessarily complicated Kree way of saying ‘playing peek-a-boo’, were the situation not so grave. “And I’ve somehow startled her into some sort of erratic convulsive breathing.”

 Upon examining her daughter from where she lay in the egg-shaped bouncer seat, the problem became apparent right away. 

 “Yon. She has the hiccups.” Carol deadpanned, in an odd mix of annoyance and amusement.

“She’s got what?” Yon-Rogg didn’t look away from where he was hurriedly fastening the straps to the pouch he’d made for his jacket, making ready to whisk her off to the nearest medical center.  

“The hiccups. She’s fine.”

Una squirmed with surprise as she breathed out another squeak and Carol couldn’t resist picking her up and cooing over her. “Yeah, you got the hiccups, don’t you lil bean? Scared the bejesus out of your Dad, but that’s just what we humans do.”

Her partner stopped his frantic movements for a moment, tilting his head in blatant confusion.

Now Carol finally does roll her eyes at him while adjusting Una in her arms. “Sometimes the muscles around our lungs get all wacked out, they’ll go away in a few minutes.  It’s a Terran thing, I guess.”

“Yes.” He finally breathes while slowly undoing the straps on the pouch. Visibly shaken, his eyes still don’t leave the baby in her arms. “Yes, it _certainly_ is.”

 

 

At 3 months in, everything was settled down on her partner’s end, who’d come to acquaint himself with Una’s peculiar terran traits. However, Carol felt less settled than ever. Next month she planned to resume her intergalactic duties, but the fact that she felt more confident in her abilities to save the universe than be the right mother for Una weighed heavily on her.

Today it was Yon Rogg’s turn to train with Carol’s new defense team, which he‘d gladly whipped into cosmic-warrior-heroes- shape in no time, making Carol’s job as their leader much, _much_ easier. But for the entirety of his absence that day Una had been quite fussy.

Carol tried baby-talking in a voice that always seemed to make Monica laugh as a toddler, rocking her, putting her in the gliding bounce-seat and setting her on the holo-mat to no avail. Una refused all her soothers, toys and even feeding as she twisted away from Carol’s breast and continued to wail for hours, her frankly extraordinary stamina owing to her proud Kree heritage.

 When Yon-Rogg returned that evening, Carol watched as he scooped up their squalling daughter, shushed her softly while staring directly into her eyes and Una quieted almost immediately. 

“She’s tired.”  He noted as Una yawned and rubbed at her eyes in his arms.

“You think? Yeah I’d imagine so, seeing as she’s been screaming for the past _8 hours_.” Carol ran a hand through her now stringy blond hair. Every part of her felt raw and exposed, as if she’d been on the receiving end of her own photon blasts.

 Yon-Rogg looked as if he had something else to say, but thought better of it. “Right. I’ll go put her down then.”

 Left adrift and frayed, Carol secluded herself in her parked ship before comm-ing Maria. It’d taken some finagling, with video chat tech still in its infancy back on earth. But a few guided modifications Maria and Carol were able stay in contact using her ship communicator and heavily boosted ViewStation software on earth. It took a few tries before Maria materialized on the screen before her, wearing a bathrobe and wrapped hair but otherwise ecstatic.

“Carol! I got those pictures from last week and damn if she doesn’t look more and more like you everyday. I mean, besides the whole purple eye thing. Also Monica keeps asking when she’s gonna come visit and I keep tellin’ her we gotta wait until she’s a little bigger. But when do you think you can bring her down here so I can finally hold my niece? It’s just that, now I know I keep saying this;  but I keep thinking back on when Monica was that age and time really flies. I mean it _flies,_ girl.” Maria chatted animatedly, as she always did when it came to talking about her niece. Until she noticed Carol’s appearance, the rims around her eyes, the ropey hair.

Her friend scooted closer to the camera. “Okay, I know something’s bugging you. Like really bugging you. You’ve got that thousand-yard stare. What’s going on, something happen with Una?”

Carol gave a lifeless shrug.  “She doesn’t like me.” Her own voice strangely demure to her ears.

“Carol-”

“No _,_ don’t tell me I don’t mean it, or I’m wrong. Do _not_.” Realizing her voice was emphatically close to breaking she forced herself to a lower volume, better hiding her shame.

“I don’t know how to be a mom to her. Everything I do is wrong. I mean, she’s a whole different goddamn species, and her Dad just gets it. He gets her on a level I’ll just never understand, he has this whole connection thing that I’ll never have with her. He knows exactly when she needs to eat, when she needs to be changed, when she needs to be held, all her weird little reflexes. Hell, I can’t even produce the right amount of protein she needs, like I psychically _can’t_ , my body can’t do it.” It was as if each word put her closer to the edge but she kept going, feeling like she might cause some sort of cataclysmic explosion if she were to stop.

“I know that Kree are some of the most devoted parents in the universe, but I- I just can’t keep up. I can’t be the other parent she needs. And I can’t stop myself from wondering-” Carol hesitated, but Maria remained silent, waiting for her to finish.

With a sigh Carol sat back in the seat before laying it out. “How can I go back out there, knowing that she might be better off if I don’t come back?”

At length Maria shook her head before gusting a sigh of her own.  “Carol, you know I love you- but I’d smack you through this screen right now if I could.”

“What?” Carol’s nose stung with emotion, and her eyes glassy with what came dangerously close to tears.

 “I know you know that ain’t true.” Maria replied in a gentle but sharp tone. “Never mind saving the world, the universe and my ass _multiple_ times. To me, the greatest thing you ever did was help shape who Monica is as a person. It’s like every time you were around her I could see all the ways you were teaching her how to make her way in the world. She’s brave, smart, funny and a _huge_ pain in my ass sometimes, just like you. I can’t even tell you how proud I am of her and who she’s growing into. So don’t you dare think for one second Una would be better off without you as a mother.”

“But she-”

 “She’s your _daughter_ , Carol. She’s a part of you and…Him.” Maria wrinkled her face with a slight grimace, mostly in jest. Mostly.  “She’s strange and wonderful- but you don’t know about her yet. I’ve been there too, we all have. No one talks about it, but we have. You’re not sure about everything yet, she’s not sure about everything yet and that’s cool- it’s fine, it’s _natural_.”

That particularly resonated with her, perhaps because it was the first time she’d heard the word ‘natural’ used to describe something she’d actually naturally felt.

Maria continued without waiting for a response. “Look here; take a shower, what time is it? Well, doesn’t matter- if she’s sleeping then you sleep too. Get some sleep. Then when she wakes up do what she needs, but then I want you to hold her. Just hold her, sing to her like you did with Monica. I promise it will help. It’s like a windmill restart, you still practice those out there?  You’re gliding with no power right now, but you put yourself where you need to be and trust yourself, that engine will come back online, you’ll see.” 

“Maria,” Carol tried to swallow the thickness in her throat, to find the unfindable words for how she felt. How Maria always seemed to make her feel.

“We can play catch up tomorrow, I got shit to do at 8 and it’s 4am right now.” Maria grinned, and Carol was relieved that Maria spared her from attempting any gushing appreciation in her overwrought state.

“Okay.” The call ended.

 

As per Maria’s advice, Carol took the longest, hottest shower she’d allowed herself in months. She ate while Yon-Rogg grumbled about the new recruits, and surprised herself by wrapping her arms around him from behind as she passed by his chair, taking a moment to inhale his clean scent.

Neither of them were prone to sentiment, perhaps even adversely so. But there was something remarkably tender in the way they prepared for bed, the way small touches lingered. She reacquainted herself with the taste of his lips, and slight rasp of his stubble against her neck but their casual intimacy didn’t progress much farther once they hit the sheets. Carol fell into a deep sleep against the fabric of his shirt before she could remove the garment, and he’d nodded off with a hand slung loosely around her hips.

 They awoke entangled to the sounds of Una starting to fuss. Carol found herself sore with missed feedings, having dampened the front Yon-Rogg’s shirt from where she was smushed up against it.

She pushed a hand onto his chest when she felt him starting to rise. “No, I’ll do it. I need to do it.”

“Mmm, if you insist.” She saw the hint of a drowsy smile on his face as he slumped back down.

This time Una fed with little trouble, cooing happily as she nursed. Instead of immediately putting Una back down in an effort to ‘sleep train’ her as Yon-Rogg did, Carol just sat up with her, rocking and humming idly- but mostly just looking. Staring down at the great unknown universe in her arms, suddenly a muscle in Una’s fat little cheek twitched on one side, then the other, and before Carol knew it her little girl was smiling up at her.

 _‘She's got a smile it seems to me,’_ Carol’s humming became soft words as she remembered the last time her and Maria howled into the night together at Poncho’s, the last song they sang together. Guns N’ Roses might have to forgive the liberties she took with the somewhat fuzzy lyrics, but it still got the job done. Una snuffled softly, her lilac eyes pinched shut and just like that, she was out like a light against her mother’s chest. 

Sure, it was all a little new and a little different, but maybe she didn’t need that whole ‘imprinting’ thing after all. Maybe her and her little girl would have their own thing going on just fine.

_natural._


End file.
